160 Birds of Colorado 
in the cotton-woods along the river valleys in the plains 
and foothills. It is a bird of strong flight, and the rapid 
strokes of its wings make a whizzing sound. It has a 
very mournful, cooing note, which soon becomes annoying 
and tiresome to man, but which appears to gratify its 
mate. 
The food consists chiefly of seeds and berries and it 
doubtless takes a toll of the grain fields. 
The nesting season begins early, and eggs can be found 
from the end of May till the beginning of September, 
and doubtless two or three broods are raised in a 
season. 
In the plains the nest is most frequently placed on the 
ground ; in the mountains, according to Gale, more often 
in bushes and trees, but the nesting-sites chosen vary 
very considerably. Two fresh eggs taken by I. C. Hall, 
and presented to the Colorado College Museum, were 
found on June Ist near Greeley, in a flat nest of small 
twigs, placed on a heap of old, dead rushes in a marsh. 
Gale found nests at the angle where a branch joins a 
tree-trunk, upon the longitudinal branch of a bunch 
of undergrowth, upon the crown of an old stump, and 
upon the ground. 
The nest is a slight affair of a few twigs and sometimes 
a little dry grass. The eggs, generally two in number, 
though often only one, are pure glossy-white, generally 
nearly oval, and measure about 1'1 x ‘9 
Genus MELOPELIA. 
Bill slender and lengthened, about equal to the tarsus; s bare space 
round the eye; tail shorter than the wing, of twelve broad, rounded 
feathers ; tarsus naked and scutellate ; no black spots on the scapulars, 
but a white patch on the wing. 
Only one North American species found along the southern border 
of the United States. 
